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“I did.” Cory still smiled, though there was a deep sadness in his eyes now, and Alex remembered the way Matt used to smile like that, sometimes, in a way that made her heart ache. That last day…“How much did Matt tell you about his childhood?”
She shrugged and shifted the empty water bottle from one spot to another on her desktop. “Just that he was adopted—he and Wade—when they were little. He told me he had a happy childhood, though. Said his adoptive parents were great—older, but nice. Good people. I don’t think he even remembers anything before that.”
Cory nodded. “Wade didn’t, either. Actually, I was hoping you could tell me—”
“So, what happened?” She broke in on the question, hoping to stall it. “How did you guys get separated?”
He smiled again, wryly, and his eyes told Alex he was onto her tactic and okay with it—for now. “Wasn’t just us ‘guys,’ actually. We have two sisters, too. Twins. They were toddlers at the time.” He hitched a shoulder apologetically. “Haven’t had any luck finding them, yet.”
Alex glared fiercely down at her hand and the empty bottle, daring the burn in her eyes and the ache in her throat to produce tears. She won that battle but didn’t trust her voice, and finally just shook her head.
“Our father was a good man, before Vietnam changed him,” Cory said softly into the silence. “I was born before he left, old enough to remember how he was then. I remember his gentleness, and the way he liked to tell me stories. Then he was gone. And he never came back. Some stranger came in his place. Wade and Matt were born after that, and then the twins. But Dad never told them stories. He’d drink instead. And he’d have flashbacks. At those times, Mom would lock us kids in the bedroom and tell me to look out for them—keep them safe. Then she’d try to talk Dad back from whatever hell he’d gone to. She took…a lot from him, to keep him from hurting us, or himself.”
He drew a hand across his face, and the movement caught Alex’s gaze like a magnet and held it fast so she couldn’t look away even though she wanted to.
“Then…one night I guess she couldn’t bring him back. He tried to break down the door to the bedroom where us kids were hiding. I don’t know exactly what happened, but…anyway, that night he shot her, and then himself.”
“God…” The whispered word slipped from her before she could stop it.
“We were taken away to some sort of shelter—a group home. I don’t remember much about it. Then we were divided up among several foster homes. I kept running away from mine, trying to keep in touch with the others. I was considered a disruptive influence, I guess, because nobody would let me see them. Eventually, I landed in juvenile detention. While I was there, Wade and Matt and the twins got adopted by two different sets of parents. I got out when I was eighteen, of course, but nobody would tell me where they were. Nobody would tell me anything. Which was probably a good thing, I suppose, in retrospect. I was angry enough, I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d been able to find the little ones. Kidnapped ‘em maybe. Something stupid, I’m sure.”
“So…how did you find them? I mean, after so long—that had to be, what, twenty-five years ago?”
“Well, it hasn’t been easy. I have my own resources, but we didn’t make any real headway until we hired a P.I. who specializes in this kind of thing—reuniting adoptees with biological parents. A man named Holt Kincaid. He’s the one that made this happen. He found Wade first. Up in Portland. And Wade put us in touch—”
“With Matt.” She folded her arms across her middle and frowned at him, concentrating on keeping all traces of emotion out of her voice. “So…have you seen him?” How is he? How does he look? Does he still have the smile, now that he can’t walk? Can’t climb, can’t do any of the things we both loved to do.
“Matt, you mean? I’ve talked to him,” Cory said. “On the phone, a couple of times. I’m on my way to meet him now. But I wanted to…” He shifted abruptly, leaned forward and propped his forearms on his knees, hands clasped between them, head bowed in what seemed almost an attitude of prayer. After a moment he cleared his throat and looked up at her. “I wanted to talk to you first,” he said carefully. “I need to know what I’m in for.”
Alex pushed away from the desk, scooped up the water bottle and went to drop it into the recycling bin that stood beside the door to the warehouse. “What can I tell you?” she said without turning. “I haven’t seen him since he left rehab.”
“I mean, about the accident. You were with him when it happened.”
She shrugged. “We were rock climbing, he fell, broke his back, now he’s paralyzed. That’s about it.”
“Come on.” The smile in his voice made it a gentle rebuke. “That much I got from Wade.”
She spun back to him, firing questions in a breathless rush, again hoping maybe with the sheer volume of them she might hold him off a little longer. “How is Wade, by the way? I didn’t even ask you—he told me he got shot? What’s up with that? And he said he’s getting married? Man, that’s just…I didn’t think Wade would ever settle down. I don’t think cops do too well with relationships. So I’m really surprised. What’s she like? Have you met her?”
“I have,” Cory said, while his eyes regarded her steadily from behind the rimless lenses in a way that made her feel he could see inside her head. And knew how desperately she was trying to avoid this—talking about Matt. Thinking about Matt. “Tierney’s…something special.” He paused, then added with a secret little smile, “I think she and Wade will do well together.”
“What about you?” She tilted her head back, still smiling at him, though his steady eyes told her it wasn’t fooling him one bit. “Are you married?”
And she watched his face light up in a way that altered his whole being. It reminded her of watching a film of a land blooming from winter into spring in fastforward. “Yes, I am. My wife’s name is Sam—Samantha. She’s the reason for all this, you know. The reason I decided to start looking for the little ones.”
“Wow,” Alex said, her own smile hanging in there, resolute and meaningless. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”
“Several, actually.”
Cory studied the young woman facing him with arms folded and smile firmly in place, barricades she struggled valiantly to maintain. She wasn’t tall, he’d noted, but looked wiry and fit, with long, thick dark hair worn in a single braid. Not beautiful, but definitely attractive. Her skin was a warm golden brown, with a sprinkle of freckles across her nose and the tops of her cheeks that gave her face a poignancy she probably wasn’t aware of and would have hated if she’d known. Beyond any doubt, her eyes were her best feature, hazel fringed with thick black lashes. They had a brave and haunted look now, and he felt a deep sympathy for her, along with an aching sense of familiarity.
I know what you’re doing, Alex Penny. I know because it’s what I used to do. Ask the questions to keep from having to answer any. Concentrate on someone else’s story to avoid having to tell your own.
He said gently, “I’d gotten very good at burying everything that had happened to me…the loss of my family. That, along with the anger. Fortunately, I’d learned to channel that anger into writing, and I think I took to writing about—and reporting on—wars because on some level I was trying to understand what had happened to my dad. But I never let myself think about my brothers and sisters. That was an emotional minefield I didn’t cross—didn’t even want to try. Sam changed all that. But not before I almost lost her, trying to keep my secrets.”
There was a silence, one that seemed longer than it was. Then she let out a breath and unfolded her arms, and although she remained distant from him, she relaxed enough to lean against the wall. “Okay, so what do you want to know?”
“How did it happen? How did my brother fall?”
“I don’t know.” She slapped that back at him, defensive again, chin thrust out. “The rigging failed. That’s all I know. Believe me, if I—”
“I’m not blaming you for what happened,” Cory said quietly.
“Well, swell, that makes one of us!” Her eyes seemed to shimmer, but with anger, not tears. Then she lowered her lashes to hide them, and after a moment went on in a wooden voice, as if reciting something she’d committed to memory long ago.
“We were going to expand the business—offer combination adventures, rafting and rock climbing. We’d already checked out several climbs—this one wasn’t any more difficult than some of the others we’d done. We were almost to the top. I was ahead of Matt. I heard him shout—not a scream, like he was scared, just…a shout. There was some scraping, the sound of rocks falling. I looked back, and Matt was lying on a ledge about halfway down. I knew he was hurt. I thought, you know…I was afraid he was dead.
“When I got to him, he was conscious, and I was just so glad he was alive. I didn’t even think about anything else. But he had this scared look on his face. Like…he knew. He told me he couldn’t move, and I kept telling him not to move. I made sure he wasn’t bleeding anywhere—well, except for some cuts and scrapes—and I went for help. They got him out with a helicopter. They were good, those guys—they handled him like he was made of glass. They did everything they could—”
“I’m sure they—and you—did everything you could.”
Her freckles stood out almost in relief against her golden skin, and he wished he knew her well enough to go to her and offer more comfort than the words she’d probably already heard too many times before.
“So…” And he hesitated, the journalist in him struggling against the compassionate man he was and the brother he was only just learning to be, trying to put the question he had to ask in the least hurtful way he could. “After my brother got out of the hospital, and had been through rehab, whose decision was it for him to stay in Los Angeles?”
“His, of course.” Again, she swatted the words back at him, as the hurt she’d so far been able to hide spasmed across her face like summer lightning. “He…broke things off with me. Told me it was—quote—better for both of us. I wanted him to come back, stay and run the business with me. I tried to convince him. I told him it didn’t matter—” She broke off, looking appalled, probably because she’d said so much, and to a total stranger.
“I wonder why,” Cory said, keeping his voice dispassionate—the reporter’s voice. “You told me you take physically disabled people on the river. It doesn’t seem as though being in a wheelchair should have kept him from continuing on with you in the business, if he’d wanted to.”
“Yeah, well…that’s the point, isn’t it?” Her voice was quiet, and rigid with controlled anger. “Evidently, he didn’t.”
Cory studied her thoughtfully and didn’t reply. There were so many things he could have said…asked about. Things like his brother’s pride, and hers, and whether she’d ever told Matt how she felt about him. Whether she’d ever asked him to stay—actually said the words. It was obvious to Cory, who’d spent a good part of his life ferreting out the feelings behind the words people employed to hide them, that Alex Penny’s feelings for his brother ran deep. The kind of anger and pain he’d seen in those golden eyes of hers didn’t come from nothing. There’d been something more between those two than a business partnership—a lot more. In Alex’s case, at least, the feelings were still there.
And he’d be willing to bet she’d deny it with her last breath.
He looked at his watch and rose, smiling apologetically. “Wow, look at the time. I’ve taken up more of yours than I intended to. I’d figured on being halfway to L.A. by now.”
“You’d have hit rush hour traffic,” Alex said stiffly. “Probably better this way.”
“Yeah, maybe. Well—” He held out his hand. “I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”
“No problem,” she said as she took his hand and shook it—a quick, hard grip.
“It’s been a big help. I think I understand a little better what I’m dealing with now.”
“Glad one of us does.” She said it with a smile, but her voice had the funny little rasp to it that told him she was keeping a tight grip on emotions she didn’t intend to share.
They exchanged the usual goodbyes and thank-yous and Cory left the offices of Penny Tours feeling lighter of heart and of mind than when he’d arrived, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain.
After Matt’s brother had gone, Alex made her way to her desk and lowered herself carefully into the chair he’d just vacated. She felt shaky and weak in the knees—a fact that both frustrated and infuriated her.
“Damn you, Matt,” she said aloud.
As if she’d heard the name, or—which was more likely, since she was practically deaf—sensed something, the dog Annie came padding across the room to thrust her white muzzle under Alex’s hand. After receiving her expected ear fondle and neck hug, the old Lab collapsed with a groan at Alex’s feet and went instantly back to sleep.
That was where they both were some time later when Eve returned from the Rafting Center.
She opened the back door a crack and peeked through it, then, seeing Alex was alone, came to claim the chair at the empty desk next to hers. She slouched into it and spun it around with a noisy creak to face Alex.
“Hey,” she said, with a poorly suppressed grin. “Your visitor take off?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, rousing herself. “So, how’d it go with the Las Colinas kids?”
“Great. Everybody had a ball, as usual.” The grin blossomed. “Bobby got dunked.”
“No way.”
“Oh yeah, way. Twice, actually—he’d just managed to climb back in the boat when he went over again. The kids loved it. Randy got some great footage.”
“Nice.” Alex produced a grin in return, though her heart wasn’t in it.
In the silence that followed, Eve rotated her chair back and forth with that annoying creaking sound, and finally said, “So, the dude with the glasses. You said he’s Matt’s brother? Sure didn’t look like a cop.”
“Cop? Oh, no, no, different brother.” Alex waved a hand dismissively, hoping Eve would take the hint from that and leave it alone. The last thing she felt like doing was explaining Matt Callahan’s family to Eve. The last person she wanted to talk about in any way was Matt Callahan.
He was the last person she wanted to think about, too, and she knew she was going to do that whether she wanted to or not, as well.
“So, what did he want with you? I thought you and that guy were finished.”
Alex scrubbed her burning eyes with the hand she’d used to try to fend off the question. “We were—we are. It’s not—it’s nothing to do with me, actually. He just…had some questions about Matt. About the accident, and…stuff like that.”
“That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Why ask you? Why not just ask his brother?”
“It’s not that simple. He doesn’t really know Matt. He hasn’t seen him since they were little kids. Look, it’s a long story, okay? And I don’t really feel like talking about it right now.”
And instantly she thought, Damn, why did you do that? You know Eve’s going to have her feelings hurt.
And yes, now she was looking like a kicked puppy. Which she really didn’t deserve.
“Sorry,” Alex said gruffly. “Hey, you know me. I just…really don’t want to talk about it. Okay? I’ll tell you all about it later, I promise.”
“Well, you better,” Eve said sternly, then grinned as she levered herself out of the chair. “Hey, the guides are getting together at The Corral to toast Bobby’s double dunking. You coming?”
“I…dunno. I have a killer headache and a bunch of paperwork to do here before I can call it a day. You go on. Maybe I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Okay.” Eve paused at the door to look back at her, head tilted. “Hey, Alex.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s not thinking about coming back, is he? Your ex? I mean, you’re not thinking about taking him back?”
Alex gave a short hard bark of a laugh. “Oh, hell no.”
“Well, good. Because the guy ran out on you, right? I mean, I remember how it was. It was pretty rough around here for a while.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Alex said with a flip of her hand, as if she were swatting at a fly. “Matt Callahan and I are ancient history.”
Eve hesitated, then nodded. She gave the door frame a slap. “Okay. See you later. I’ll save you a cold one.”
For a few minutes after she’d gone, Alex sat without moving. Then, slowly, she swiveled to the desk and reached for the phone. Picked it up. Held it for a long time, then put it back in its cradle without dialing the number she still remembered, even after five years.
Just as she remembered the words they’d spoken to each other then. Words she didn’t want to remember. Words that made her cringe to remember.
“Ah, jeez, Matt. Don’t do this.”
“Do what? It’s not like I’m asking you to run off and get married tomorrow. Just talk about it. Why’s that so hard? We’ve been doing this—whatever it is we’re doing—for five years. Don’t you think it’s about time?”
“Doing what? What’ve we been doing? Seems to me we’ve been fighting for five years! So now you want to get married?”
“Yeah, and what is it we fight about? I’ll tell you what we fight about—we start to get close, and you get scared, so you do something to screw it up.”
“I don’t! That’s bull—”
“Sure you do. Every damn time things start to get really good for us. Just because your mother messed up your head—”
“Don’t you dare blame my mother for this!”
“Why not? She’s managed to convince you every man’s a jerk like your father, leaving her cold when he found out she was pregnant. Well, I’m not your father, okay? I’m not a jerk. We’ve been working together, sleeping together—hell, we’ve been best friends—for five years, you should know that by now. We’ve got a good thing going. Or it could be good, if you’d quit trying to ruin it. It’s no big secret how I feel about you, I tell you often enough. So, now I’m asking you.” He paused to give her a hard, burning look. “Do you love me?”
Do I love you? The question was a white-hot fire burning inside her head. Somewhere inside the fire was the answer she feared even more than she feared losing Matt. The answer she couldn’t bring herself to grab hold of or even look at, as if, like some mythical curse it would sear her eyes blind, or turn her to stone.
“It’s…complicated,” she mumbled, her face stiff with pain.
“I don’t see what’s so complicated about it. You either do, or you don’t.”
She’d turned away, then. But she remembered Matt’s face…tight-lipped, stubborn as only he could be. And his hands…their movements jerky and hurried as he packed his climbing gear.
Cory heard the ruckus before he saw it, as soon as he entered the foyer of the rec center. He was able to follow the sounds of mayhem to their source, the indoor basketball arena, where, from an open doorway, the noise pulsed and billowed like a heavy curtain in a high wind. He braced himself and paused there to assess the likelihood that carnage either had already ensued within or was about to. He’d been in battle zones, live ammo firefights less noisy and less violent.
What he saw inside that huge room confirmed it: people here were trying to kill each other.
What it reminded him of was an epic movie battle scene set in medieval times. War cries and shrieks of pain and rage echoing above the thunder of horses’ hooves and the clash of steel swords on armor plating and chain mail. Except these battle chargers were made of titanium, not flesh and bone, and carried their riders on wheels instead of hooves.
Out on the gleaming honey-gold hardwood floor, four wheelchairs were engaged in a no-holds-barred duel for possession of what appeared to be a regulationsize volleyball. Now the ball rose above the fray in a tall arc, to be plucked from the air by a long brown arm and tucked between drawn-up knees and leaning chest. The four chairs swiveled, drew apart amid cries of “Here here here!” and “Get ‘im, get the—” and “No you ain’t, mother—” then smashed together again more violently than before.
Cory’s fascination carried him into the room, where he found a spot in the shadow of a bank of bleacher seats from which to watch the mayhem. Now that he could see it more clearly, the contest on the court seemed less like a battle between medieval knights and more like a grudge match being settled via amusement park bumper cars—though the canted wheels on the low-slung chairs did resemble warriors’ shields, even down to the dents and dings. The occupants of the wheelchairs—four young males of assorted ethnicities—all wore expressions of murderous intent, but the chairs moved clumsily, slowly, and their clashes produced more noise than effect.
Again the white ball arced into the air, to be retrieved by a lanky black kid wearing a Dodgers baseball cap—backward, of course. After tucking the ball into his lap, the kid hunched protectively over it and slapped at the wheels of his chair with hands wearing gloves with the fingers cut off, pumping as hard as he could for the far end of the court. The other three chairs massed in frantic pursuit. One, manned by a stocky boy of an indeterminate racial mix, seemed to be angling to cut off the possessor of the ball, before it was smashed viciously from the side by another pursuer. Over they went, toppling forward almost in slow motion, chair and occupant together, spilling the latter facedown onto the court. Above him, the chair’s wheels spun ineffectively, like the futilely waving appendages of a half-squashed beetle.
